Green Day

I generally eschew discussing politics in this forum for two reasons. One: the vast majority of my readers are roughly in agreement with me, so it's usually unnecessary, and we meet up at other places to have that sort of conversation. Two: for those who aren't in agreement, it seems rude and exclusionary and generally not appropriate.

So I'm not going to ruminate upon what I think of this video. I'll let the newly famous and unmasked Rude Pundit do it for me.

Now, in the video for the seemingly straightforward power ballad "Wake Me Up When September Ends," Green Day makes an answer to every Army-of-One bullshit ad. The video begins with a sappy teen love story, complete with the music low and the dialogue audible, until we see the weeping teenage girl going up to the teenage boy, begging to know if what she heard is true. The boy explodes that she doesn't understand, and then we see what they're talking about, with the boy going off in a bus, having his head shaved, being trained by the military, and sent to an urban battlefield that is presumably Iraq.

There, guitars peaking in the background, we watch as the boy's patrol comes under fire from an unseen enemy, with explosions and bullets all around them. As he watches his fellow soldiers being hit, we see the boy, scared, confused, hidden in one of the bombed out buildings. The thing is that it's filmed as if it is one of those Army or Marine ads, except it looks fucking scary. And then it ends with the teenage girl back at home, sitting on bleachers. We don't know if the boy lives or dies (perhaps there's a sequel in the offing?), but we know that the innocence of the early part has been compromised, and that there's no way that girl and that boy can ever connect again.

Simple. A bit sappy. And as effective as a mallet to the head. Or that bleeding heart grenade on the cover of the album itself.

I'll also note the role of economics subtly implied in the video: the girl pays for their fast food, and the boy has no suit when they wed, so it seems pretty clear that there's a class argument on the floor as well. His insistence that "I did this for us! I thought you of all people would understand!" is gut-wrenching, ripping away the veneer that "only true patriots join up," or whatever invective is being slung at folks like Cindy Sheehan this week.

Look, I know these kids. I teach in a small town community college. More than that, I come from the working class and while, in some places, each generation may expect to live a little better than their parents, in my world, each generation lives a little worse. Thers and I both work to maintain the house my father built on one salary, and the children of my siblings are struggling to pay for educations and even to find jobs. One of my nieces is married to a man who was talking to recruiters as a way out of financial difficulty: that's what I think of when I see this video. Important difference though: they have two kids under three. Green Day probably thought that would be too overwrought and melodramatic, however.

CBGB's: Another View

From today's NYTimes....

The club has been some kind of symbol for decades. The question is whether that symbolism can transcend real estate and real noise. A transplanted CBGB would be irrevocably changed, and an artificially preserved one could be just as dicey. Punk-rock certainly has enough artifacts to fill a museum, but solemn academic inquiry just doesn't seem right for CBGB. A transplanted CBGB might become something like the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles woodshedded and which was demolished and rebuilt as a replica (with some of the original bricks). What has been a symbol of unlovely urban survival would turn into a self-conscious icon.

Or, to be precise, a more self-conscious icon. It's hard to say how long ago CBGB started considering itself legendary, but decades is a fair estimate. While punk promoted itself as overthrowing the status quo, CBGB has prided itself on staying put.

Everyone knows CBGB is a dump, same as it ever was: a place where punk spirit holds out against gentrification, a remnant of the old stinking Bowery versus the slick NoLIta. CBGB & OMFUG (which once stood for Country Blue Grass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gourmandisers) started out as a neighborhood joint and never upgraded much beyond its sound system. It's had chic visitors, but it never turned chic; even as it became a tourist stop, as it has been at least since the early 1980's, it stayed dingy, a place where kids could still afford to hang out. Mr. Kristal hasn't profiteered unduly.

SNIP

The post-punk and no-wave bands that are now being widely imitated also had a home at CBGB as the 1970's turned into the 1980's, and so did hardcore matinees. But in the years since, well, it often seems that all a band needs to get a CBGB gig is a wacky name. Musicians like P. J. Harvey and Guns N' Roses, who were grateful for what they learned from the first CBGB bands, have performed there by way of tribute. But it has been a long time since the club was the crucible for a movement.

In some ways, CBGB is a victim of one of punk's enduring myths: that amateur enthusiasm is all a band needs. All the stickers on the walls prove otherwise. What made the first CBGB bands important wasn't that they were amateurs, but that they were inspired amateurs; they had a sound in their heads, one that didn't require too much technique.

Not sure how I feel about this. You?

Make-up Babyblogging: Science Edition

Rosie contemplates the wonders of cause and effect. 

Sorry.

Things have been getting hairy here, what with EschaCon looming, a family reunion, home improvement, kids on vacation, and two summer classes. Just wanted to let ou know I didn't forget, and have a few posts stewing and some back Babyblogging for you. So watch this space over the next few days as I get caught up.

Friday Babyblogging: Spooky Edition

Rosie glows with an unholy light.

Don't forget to register for EschaCon! 

They Might Be Giants

As I noted last week, we had the TMBG documentary, Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns from Netflix. I have to confess, I couldn't resist watching it one more time before I returned it. Man, I like these guys. It's one of the great tragedies of my life that the one time I was going to see them, in a free outdoor show at the University of Miami, the skies opened up as only South Florida skies can a scant hour before the show, which was understandably called off.

But the Johns play a lot, and a recent review at Popmatters caught my attention.

Early on during They Might Be Giants's show at Boulder's Fox Theatre, keyboardist/accordionist/vocalist John Linnell called a song to a premature halt, waving his hands frantically at his bandmates.

"Whoa, hold it guys," he croaked. "I don't know what's wrong-my voice is all messed up."

Though the band is known for its onstage pranks, this wasn't one of them. Holding his throat, it appeared that Linnell really was having trouble with his vocal chords.

"It's the altitude," suggested an audience member.

"No, it's not the altitude," Linnell answered. "It must be the latitude. What is this-the 40th parallel? We can't play shows at the 40th parallel!"

I also really recommend Gigantic, especially for the inadvertently revealing scenes in which John Linnell allows himself to be upstage by his toddler. I swore he was pushing the kid between himself and the camera.

Thersites and I used to think we were ingenious, because we regularly used "Istanbul, Not Constantinople" for breaking through kid crankiness: a better song for dancing around the house of jumping on the bed would be hard to find. But apparently others have copped onto this: the Johns have two albums just for kids: No! and Here Come the ABC's They also have a cool website just for kids. Proof positive: it is never really necessary to patronize Raffi.

Now *this* is exciting!

One of my posters or correspondents mentioned this to me the other day in passing, and it looks really, really nifty.

via Pitchfork:

Big Star to Release New Album

To be released by Rykodisc, In Space will feature mastermind and principal songwriter Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, both original members of the classic quartet. Rounding out the lineup are Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of fellow power-poppers the Posies. Auer and Stringfellow have been part of Big Star since 1993, when the group reformed to tour.

I am soooo looking forward to this.

Ten Songs

Well, Strange Little Fox has tagged me, so here I go:

List ten songs that you are currently digging...it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

1. "Maureen," Fountains of Wayne (off the new one)
2. "Stop Your Sobbing," The Kinks (Thanks to steve s. & DR!)
3. "Love On a Farmboy's Wages," XTC (True: I sing this as a lullaby to my children)
4. "I Get Lost," Choo Choo la Rouge (Boston pop: gonna see them this fall)
5. "Mary Mary," Chumbawamba (I love this band, unapologetically)
6. "Love's Sick," Hotsocky (I'm obsessed with this song)
7. "Side 2," Dressy Bessy (Props to ekim, a kinder and more generous soul never existed)
8. "Glow Girl," The Who (steve again--I had it, but I heard it differently this week.)
9. "Your Devotion," Shoes (In the last week, I've listened to the whole repertoire on the ipod, comprising 93 songs. Annoyed the hell out of the offspring.)
10. "Good Girls Don't," The Knack (just got this on CD finally, and this was always my fave)
NB: No Paul Anka.

And my five tags, all predictable: watertiger, Thersites, Eli, NTodd, and Codename V. (still hearting the Killers, V.?)

Minute Men

I'm quite enjoying Sarah Vowell, the NYT fill-in for Maureen Dowd, who is on book leave. Not only is Vowell smarter, younger, and funnier than her execrable page mate John Tierney, she also likes music.

Thers and I sat down the other night to watch Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, a pretty decent documentary about They Might Be Giants. I kept looking up to catch people I recognized ("Hey! That's Adam Schlesinger!"), but the young woman who vaguely resembled my mid 80's self was unknown to me, since I missed the fist slide identifying her. Eventually she was reidentified, though, as Sarah Vowell.

Today, Vowell's column brings together the Minutemen of American history, the Minutemen, the heavily armed nutjobs who've taken to patrolling America's foreign borders, including those in, er, Tennessee (maybe they think Kentucky is foreign? No idea), and the Boon/Watt/Hurley band The Minutemen.

"We Jam Econo," Tim Irwin's lovable documentary about the lovable 80's punk band called the Minutemen is making the rounds of film festivals and revival houses this summer. It's nice to revisit the hullabaloo of their songs. And watching the bassist, Mike Watt, driving his van around his California hometown, San Pedro, and pointing at Minutemen landmarks is like listening to a fascinating Concord park ranger lead a tour across North Bridge. "We were minute men," Watt says. That's my-NOOT men - a little homemade band, not the slick Redcoats of arena rock.
--snip--
The best part of the film, and the most heartbreaking, is when Watt walks around the park where he met Boon, a childhood friend who died in a car accident in 1985. "I was quite smitten with him," Watt remembers. "He was playing army and he fell out of a tree on me."

As he stares at the very tree, it occurs to me that playing army when you're 13 is fine. Grown men playing army on the Mexican border? No, thanks.

It's so rare to get a newspaper columnist who gets what punk means. Props to Sarah, and the NYT needs to be smart enough to keep giving her a forum.

Friday Babyblogging

Rosie is surprisingly cheerful at being thwarted by The Gate.